The new Raspberry Pi Model A is finally for sale in the USA (in addition to Europe and Asia where it went on sale beginning a few weeks ago.)
So now there’s two models to choose from. The two are very similar, expect that the newer Model A is $10 less expensive, has only one USB port instead of two, and lacks the ethernet port of it’s older brother.
I just pledged $39 on Kickstarter towards the new Smart Herb Garden by Click & Grow. The technology is well-suited to indoor use. It centers around a special nanotech engineered soil, a computer-controlled watering system and a natural-light spectrum LED lighting system all in an attractive plastic case.
Of course applying technology to gardening is hardly new, however as the artisanal hardware trends continue, we predict more and more home gardeners will be hacking their gardens over the coming years.
Instructables has a project called “Growduino” that monitors and controllers watering and supplements natural sunlight with artificial light to ensure plants get the optimal total hours per day of light.
Gardenbot is an open-source modular system design for monitoring conditions such as temperature, moisture and light and for controlling values for watering plants. The project looks dormant now, but the plans are well-documented and there are a ton of useful links on the site (here).
If nothing else, you could continue to garden by hand and use the tech for fun things. Such as this Raspberry Pi controlled home garden train:
Ok, I exaggerate, but the fact is practically everything emits radiation. And a couple of Seattle inventors are launching a product on Kickstarter that lets you measure everything’s radioactivity. It’s called APOC, and the click-click-click of the geiger counter is irresistible.
Successful Kickstarter campaigns tend to be tailored to their audience. A mass market product (like the Pebble or the CST-01) looking to raise $100,000 or more has to show polished prototypes and a video with extremely high production values. Similarly, if your target price for the products is in the thousands of dollars (like the Form 1), supporters are going to judge your ability to execute based on the video and prototypes you present.
But if you have a great idea for a niche product then you don’t need, or even necessarily want, to go that route. Professional prototypes are expensive, and making a compelling video is costly and requires a completely different set of skills than those needed to make the product itself. Those barriers could intimidate an inventor, or be the difference between a profitable launch and a money pit.
So the APOC demonstrates another approach. They had a fun idea with a relatively small target market and they were only looking to raise $5,000. They put some clever electronics in a simple laser cut box, shot a short video, and have already raised over $30,000. Very smart.
